Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema / Edition 1

by Christian Metz, Michael Taylor

Overview

A pioneer in the field, Christian Metz applies insights of structural linguistics to the language of film.

"The semiology of film . . . can be held to date from the publication in 1964 of the famous essay by Christian Metz, 'Le cinéma: langue ou langage?'"—Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Times Literary Supplement

"Modern film theory begins with Metz."—Constance Penley, coeditor of Camera Obscura

"Any consideration of semiology in relation to the particular field signifying practice of film passes inevitably through a reference to the work of Christian Metz. . . . The first book to be written in this field, [Film Language] is important not merely because of this primacy but also because of the issues it raises . . . issues that have become crucial to the contemporary argument."—Stephen Heath, Screen

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226521305
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	12/15/1990
Edition description:	1
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Taylor has translated not only many book-length essays in art history, including Matisse's correspondence with M.-A. Couturier, but several volumes of poetry, including Victor Segalen's Stèles and Horace's complete odes. He is also the author of books on Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Table of Contents

A Note on the Translation by Bertrand Augst
Preface
A Note on Terminology
I. Phenomenological Approaches to Film
1. On the Impression of Reality in the Cinema
2. Notes Toward a Phenomenology of the Narrative
II. Problems of Film Semiotics
3. The Cinema: Language or Language System?
4. Some Points in the Semiotics of the Cinema
5. Problems of Denotation in the Fiction Film
III. Syntagmatic Analysis of the Image Track
6. Outline of the Autonomous Segments in Jacques Rozier's film Adieu Philippine
7. Syntagmatic Study of Jacques Rozier's Film Adieu Philippine
IV. The "Modern" Cinema: Some Theoretical Problems
8. The Modern Cinema and Narrativity
9. Mirror Construction in Fellini's 8 1/2
10. The Saying and the Said: Toward the Decline of Plausibility in the Cinema?
Notes